


if the world lives for a moment

by AceQueenKing



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Time Loop, Timelines are Complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Hermes tries, a thousand times, to set things right - but nothing ever changes, not for him.Persephone, having learned of Hermes thousands of attempts, decides this time they're doing things her way.
Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown), Hades/Persephone (Hadestown), Hermes & Orpheus (Hadestown), Hermes & Persephone (Hadestown)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 138
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	if the world lives for a moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thenewradical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewradical/gifts).



“I came to ask you something,” Hermes says to his springtime sister, all bedecked in flowers and light; he wishes that Hades hadn’t let her go so early, this time. It’s always nice to have her back earlier, of course, when – _if_ – it works out, but it hasn’t.

And frankly, after retelling them this story so many times, it’s easier to tell them this story together than it ever is to tell them when they’re apart.

Himself and herself, they’re stronger together, in a weird way Hermes, perhaps on account of being more storyteller than leading man, has never quite understood. Asking together means they’ll do the arguing amongst themselves; asking apart means they’ll do the arguing with _him_ , and after so many times through this story, it stops being amusing, having the same arguments, the same discussions.

“Sure brother,” Persephone says, oblivious to his dread; she leans against the counter of the bar, raises a glass to him. “I got time, got _lots_ of time. Six months time!” She smiles, as she has so many times before, that little private smile of love regained. “I think he’s going to keep it this time, Hermes. I really do.”

He winces, because this isn’t the first time he’s heard that, either. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he says, slowly, and watches as she reacts how he knows she will, as they have had this conversation so many times before: Persephone frowns at him, leans in close, doubt crawling up in her head as much as it does in her husband’s.

“What do you know that I don’t?” She scoffs. “He ain’t sent you to fetch me.” A pause, one Hermes waits for because he remembers when he’s tried to interrupt her, she’s never taken kindly to it. “Ain’t he?”

“He has not.” And will not, because almighty mister Hades won’t be retrieving her, not this go. “I just—” he raises his barely-feathered sleeve, does a bit of a shimmy that in her single days she might have laughed at once, but sister Seph is long beyond that, these days.

“It’s a long story.” He pauses, and sees her eyes are as serious as they’ve ever been when he’s telling this part.

She rears back, as she always does; curiosity and fear alight in those bright eyes. He knows what comes next, and he almost messes up, almost grabs a table before she tells him to. He takes one step back, watching Persephone as she sizes him up. He holds out his arms and smiles his best big-brother smile. She squints her eyes at him and after a long moment, she says it. “Get a table.”

He does. Now, in the beginning, he used to worry about every single one of his decisions, even decisions as small as what seat to choose. He’s tried all of the options now, by his own reckoning; every chair at every table, and some other options too: staying at the bar, taking Seph home. None of them amount to any meaningful change. The story ends as it always does, with only the most minor of variations: sometimes Hades holds Persephone a lil’ longer, sometimes Persephone goes all the way up-top, her hand in her husband’s; sometimes Hermes catches up with Orpheus after he turns around, and sometimes he ain’t so lucky. Nothing ever changes, the Fate taunt, and Hermes cannot admit they’re right. Admittedly, at this point, what makes him think this is only his own pride. He cannot rectify the thought of sacrificing so much of his life only for it to turn out, in the end, to have not mattered much at all.

He points to the left table that’s close to the bar–for his sister, he knows, will want a double round after she hears what he has to say—yet far off from the other patrons. Persephone turns, orders two more beers, and he does his best to look disapproving–as he was, in the beginning– and she makes a little squished-bug grimace that he _swears_ she inherited, somehow, from her husband.

“What?” Persephone croaks, her three beer mugs in hand frankly a little ridiculous, even for her. “Way you’re talking brother, I might need all these.”

He shakes his head but doesn’t argue the point. There’s bigger issues to be sorted.

Persephone sits across from him, and despite all the times they’ve been through this, he still takes his time to study her. She’s a beautiful woman, his sister from another mother; he can see the iron backbone that keeps her head held high, despite going through this hell so many damn times.

Of course, she doesn’t know about all those times.

“What’s he done? My _fool_ of a husband, what’s he done?” She asks, quiet. He knows that look of hers all too well, but it hurts every time to see it. Her eyes get cloudy, and because she is who and what she is, the rain splashes at the windows, rat-a-tat-tat. He thinks of his boy, Orpheus, whose name hurts to think of but he forces himself to, forces himself to imagine the boy wandering the world above, and forces himself to know how his almost-son must shiver in the cold, wet mists of early spring. His heart drops. And no matter how many times he sees it, crushing her just-won sense of love never gets easier. His heart drops further.

“Ain’t done nothing beyond stipulate the terms,” he says. “More the matter of those kids that’s the problem. They didn’t make it.”

She swears, the swear not a simple, everyday bit of cursing but one of the old words from the oldest ones who still live deep down underneath the ‘yonder side. He’s tried to translate the term she uses several times – _antimokla gurnish kadaphra_ being his best attempt at transcription _–_ but it is so old that only her old man might know what it means for sure. And Hermes, well, he respects her old man, sure, but he _loves_ his sister, and he isn’t going ask him something that might wind up meaning _by my husband’s scrawny balls_ or some such.

Frankly, that would be a bit more info than he ever wanted to know about Hades, anyway.

“Who fucked it up?” she asks, hand shaking as she sips at her beer. Almost done with one; she’ll drink all three by the time it’s done and he does not relish that thought, even if three drinks ain’t even close to testing his sister's tolerance.

“He looked behind.” A shudder goes through her; he’s never quite worked out if its relief it wasn’t Eurydice deciding she prefers Hades' shantytown or if she just feels a reflection of Orpheus pain. He grabs her hand, squeezes it. Notices a few wrinkles on that thin skin she didn’t have an attempt prior.

All these resets are aging them all. The Fates take their due.

“Just your boy screwed it _all_ up, huh?” she grouses; this is nothing new, Hermes knows she sees Hades in his boy. “ _Men_.”

“Fate helped him along.” As usual, Hermes is careful not to mention them too strongly; the three old sisters of theirs are always in the back of everyone’s mind, and gods are not immune. Those old ladies put their daddy on a throne, and her husband, too; they could just as easily take all that away.

“Fate,” Persephone spits off onto the floor; no one is brave enough to scold her for the behavior, and he doubts anyone could survive her tongue-lashing if they tried, anyway. “Why don’t those old biddies ever prophesize anything _good_ , brother?”

His sister does not hold to the same precautions he does; he feels them gather, sees them slowly drift into the bar, watching her. The Fates, Goddesses all, deities like them, but _not-at-all-_ like-them, given their proclivities for pain and sacrifice, well – he can see in the back of their mind that they’re already measuring a thread. Hermes sees Clotho spin it in his mind’s eye, feather-light but weight heavy.

He just hopes it isn’t his name on that yarn.

“So what’s the rest of the story?” She squints at him, suspicious; this is a new behavior – the last time, and every time before, she waited for him to talk. Maybe she sees the Fates, too; maybe she’s anxious. He doesn’t know. Isn’t omniscient and thank his father above for that. He couldn’t suffer through this, not again, not knowing how it might end. He clings to the hope it’ll work out, this time, and if not this time, next time, and if not that time either, well, then the next, and then the next.

“Well…” He closes his eyes, tries to think of a different way to explain this. He’s tried to say it plainly, tried to hint at it; this time, he tries a medley of the two. He puts his hands on the table. “How old do I look to you, sister?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Old as shit and just about as tired of dealing with it.”

“Hm.” He smiles; chuckles. Sister Seph always tells it true. “Now I know I’m older than you, sister, but was I always _this_ much older?”

She frowns at him, takes a sip of her drink. Then another. And another. She sees it, he thinks; the wrongness of it.

Persephone tips the glass back and downs it all. That’s new behavior; he doesn’t dare to hope it means anything until she squints at him.

“Now that you mention it…” She tilts her head. “Why are you lookin’ every bit your age, brother? You look older than he himself and he’s older than you and me combined.”

Truth is, Hermes has to wonder, just how much of Hades' lifeforce is left to them, after so many times through; that would be a bitter irony, Hermes thought, if Hades chased his own damn wife to death.

“Hermes,” she holds out two hands – also new, and a bit unnerving – and grabs both of his hands. “Tell me. What you been up to, brother?”

He looks at her, sighs. It’s never easy to tell her. The first time, he had some relief in telling her, in letting her know they’d all run through this before. This many reboots later, it just hurts to share. But it must be done, has to be done for any hope that things will work out differently, this time. 

To his surprise, Persephone doesn’t wait for him to tell her. “Show me,” she says, and that’s a different thing entirely. So different, he doesn’t have time to react ‘fore her eyes go all black and she’s staring deep into him.

Now, point of fact, herself and her man, they have a bit of an odd power. See, Hermes might be the storyteller – _is_ the storyteller par excellence, in fact, in the whole family – but her and him, they are _witnesses_. Comes with the job territory that they need to see everything every person has ever done, and so they see everything, _ever_ , but Hermes well – he’s never had that done to him before.

And it feels – weird. Persephone takes in the reboots, faster than he could tell her; he’s frozen, unable to so much as turn his head as Persephone picks through his memories like a vulture. Her eyes are black and wide and she sighs when its over, when she sees the boy turn around for the final time. She releases him, and he feels – tired.

Then she downs what’s left of beer number three, and does something that Hermes has never seen, not in any of the many, many reboots. She stands up, smooths out her skirts, and walks the hell out of the front door without another word.

“What the hell-?” he says, and he hears those old biddies laugh in the back of his mind – they know they’re due one of his feathers, and they know just as well as he does that he’s down to a mere handful of them, at this point.

The only answer is the loud crack of thunder, and Hermes knows from that that whatever his sister is doing, she isn’t playing around.

He storms after her quickly and catches up with her quickly – not much power left in old Hermes, but enough to still be quicker than your average goddess, even one who’s storming toward hell in combat boots.

“Hey,” he says, and grabs her wrist. She shakes him off, and glares her best Death Goddess glare, which would be plenty severe were she not his closest sister, and he her closest brother. She isn’t crying, but plain to see she is upset by those storm-front eyes – not to mention the thunderstorm currently soaking through his nice suit. “Hey. Where you going?”  
  
“Home,” she snaps. “Don’t know if you _know_ this, brother, but the world’s ending. Seems like the best place to be when that happens is _home_.”

“Seems as I recall your upstairs home ain’t this way, sister,” he says, but he knows what is: there’s a railway station, and her, well, she’s got the ticket to ride. 

“You know where I’m going.” She glares. “Seen him hurt me a thousand times just now, and you know what brother?” She chuckles, but ain’t nothing nice in it, not one bit. “I _still_ love him. World ends, and I want his big arm holdin’ me tight for it. It’s what he’d want, too.”

Hermes, who has never been married, does not really understand such; he thinks, that’s awful stifling. But he doesn’t really want to get into that; he pivots the conversation skillfully, tries to bring it back to what needs to happen. 

“I’m sorry,” he says; he reaches for her hand again but she shoves him off, keeps stomping. “Those kids–”

“Hundreds of times, _thousands_ of times.” She shakes her head. “And you just keep rearranging chess pieces on a board like that’d do a world of good. Like rearranging lawn chairs on the bloody _Titantic_ , brother.”

“What do you want me to do?” His voice cracks. “We’re running out of attempts.” He holds out his arms, the feathers all but picked off. Can’t fly anymore, Hermes can’t, but he’ll walk all his days if he can give his boy a better future.

“ _Men_.” His sister doesn’t even seem the least bit drunk; he recognizes the focus in her. “Leave it to sister to fix it.” At his disbelieving look, she crooks a brow. “I’ll fix it. Just go find Orpheus and –” she sighs. “Well, you can’t bring him all the way down. Against the rules.”

“I know,” he says, tartly. Mortal man enters Hades alive but once; that's the problem. 

They’re at the train station now, her and him; at the station, and nothing is stopping her from going home. She digs through her bag until she finds what she wants: an obol, old and ancient and made by the man himself, all those thousands of years ago. She holds it out to him and he sighs. He does not take it.

“There’s a crack in the wall down there, brother, in the places in-between,” she says, quiet. She presses the coin into his palm. “Give that to him, and he ought to be able to go that far.” Her hand tightens on his. _“If_ he loses it – let it be done, Hermes. Boy can only have so much tragedy wiped away.”

“What are you—?” In thousands of reboots, _this_ has never happened, Persephone making plans like this. Like it’s so easy to make it go right this time. She rolls her eyes.

“You think I gotta wait for him?” She raises her foot and _stomps_ , hard, on the ground: once, twice, thrice. “I’m the damn queen, Hermes. I can go home whenever I want to.”

And with that, the ground underneath their feet rumbles, and he has only a second to step away from her as she falls down, way down, all the way down, presumably, to his damn office.

He swallows, stares at her only for a moment. The Fates don’t hum in the back of his mind, not quite yet; maybe, he hopes, just maybe, they’re taken aback by his sister’s plot.

And if that’s the case, well, he has to act fast.

* * *

He finds Orpheus, fast as he can. It still takes him a few days: Hermes is fast, but without flying, it’s hard to move as fast as a boy trying to walk all his horrors off his feet, but Hermes does his best to make-up time and soon enough, in a city slick with the gifts of Hades’ labors and frost-cold from his sister's abrupty departure, well, there Hermes finds his boy.

“Mister Hermes,” Orpheus says, all the light gone out of his eyes. “You’ve come for me.”

“I have.” He cannot help but reach out for the boy; he enfolds his boy, his son-from-another-father, into his arms and closes his eyes. Orpheus, bless him, is not so far gone that he does not return the hug: he grabs Hermes and clings tightly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice so soft and sweet and sad. Hermes places both his hands on Orpheus' cheeks, shakes his head. He would give up more than just his life for this boy, _his_ boy. “I couldn’t – couldn’t stay, Hermes, not…”

“You’re forgiven.” He cuts the boy off, not time for such. “I understand tragedy, Orpheus. I know what it is to have to find places where the scars are not so very…” He sighs. “prominent.”

“I wanted to find a way,” he says, talking too fast, justifying what he does not need to. “Find a way back. I need to talk to her, tell her how sorry—”

“She knows,” he says, and boy does he bet she knows. Eurydice was a tenacious little thing, and he knows that the girl is probably clinging to her memories of Orpheus for as long as she can. Hades, who is not entirely pitiless despite all rumors to the contrary, will probably allow her that much. “You can’t go back, Orpheus. A living man doesn’t get to enter Hades twice. That’s the rules.”

“ _His_ rules,” Orpheus says, and doesn’t the tone of those words suggest weight Orpheus is carrying on his shoulders. Saying it, he somehow looks like what he’s carrying is even harder.

“That’s right,” Hermes says. “But that rule was there before he himself was in charge. Sometimes, rules have a reason. That one has reasons.”

Reasons that Hermes has been thumbing his nose at, mind, but reasons none the less. Grief isn’t meant to last a life-long, but he can tell from the way Orpheus reacts, all but collapsing down to the ground, that he means to make a real attempt at it.

“What if I told you,” Hermes says, soft as he can. “What if I told you you could _talk_ to her? Not face to face, perhaps, but – there’s places in this world, where words can drift from one side to another. May be, perhaps, that I know where one of those places is.”

“Take me there,” Orpheus says, his eyes bold and bright. He’s been a lot of things, his boy, but never has one of those things ever been a coward. How he loves this boy; his heart beams in parental pride.

“Let’s go,” he says. “Aight.”

* * *

It takes them a while to get downstairs: certainly, long enough that Hades and Persephone have had their reunion, and certainly, of course, that they have done with the girl what they will. He worries about it, whole way down, the fates hammering doubts in his head: Persephone is liable as not to forget about her own grand plans when it comes to butting up against her husband’s hardheadedness, and Hades, well, he isn’t pitiless but he isn’t exactly _empathetic_ , either. He’d see the transaction as closed. And Eurydice, well – Hermes knows, better than most, what happens to those whose coin he takes.

But when they get down to Persephone’s crack in the wall, somewhere in her little bar, well, there’s Eurydice, eyes dark and soft, sweeping the floors. Orpheus' voice catches as he sees her through the crack; Hermes is pretty sure nothing can keep the boy from reach out to her. He expects Persephone and Hades might leave her alone, as is usually their style – when they’re doing charity, they don’t tend to let anyone know it’s them. Can’t ruin his hard-assed reputation, Hermes supposes – but he’s risking it today, for there himself is, herself next to him, both holding a shot in their hands at a table in the bar downstairs. Suppose his fellow Gods have, on the eve of the world ending, opted for something quite a bit harder tasting than beer. There’s a third drink on the table; Hades nudges it toward him, one eyebrow raised. Hermes holds up one finger; he’ll go to that side in a minute.

“Eurydice,” Orpheus says, the words as simple as his _lalas_ but imbued with so much meaning, so much; “Eurydice, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Orpheus!” The girl throws down her broom, dashes to the hole in the wall. It’s not big enough to climb through, not even for so small a shade as herself. Still, it's a big crack; they can see one another, touch a bit. She throws her arms around her boy – no, Hermes thinks, her _man_. He watches them for a moment: Eurydice’s face is smudged with dirt, no doubt working hard. “I know – I know why you turned.” She shakes her head, and there is so much wisdom in so young a little shade’s face. “It’s – I forgive you.”

“Oh, Eurydice,” Orpheus says; she looks back towards Hades and Persephone, who coolly neither look toward her nor away. Whatever she sees there emboldens the girl. Her hands bridge the gap, bolder now that Hades hasn’t stopped them, and the two young lovers cling, arm and arm, across the divide between the living the dead.

Hermes debates telling them that these will be their last few minutes before the story starts again; decides not to. Let them be happy, he thinks; their story is complicated enough. “Tell each other what you want to remember,” he says, and they both look at him oddly; he doesn’t bother to clarify, just nods and taps his nose. “Remember.”

He moves between the divide of the living and the dead as quick as he can after that, disappearing from the upper-world and re-appearing at the tip of the under-world within seconds.

“For you,” Persephone says, and tosses him a drink. She turns toward her purse, rummages through it until she finds a pen, and jots something on the cocktail napkin next to her whiskey. “And you.”

She hands Hades the napkin, who duly folds it and puts it in his front pocket. He nods towards Hermes once, but his attention is, as always, more focused on Hermes’ sister. “It’s time,” he says, soft but final in his words. “Do it, Hermes.”

Hermes reaches out, grabs one of his feathers, wordlessly offers his tribute. He’s done this sacrifice enough times he feels the black, inky feel of the fates as they accept the feather, one of the few fonts of power on which Hermes has left to draw.

The feather burns a brilliant silver and falls.

 _You know what I want_ , he thinks; _we know_ , respond the fates, in a whisper at the back of his mind. _But will you really find what you seek_?

He doesn’t know. And he doesn’t answer that. _Just make it happen._ _Tribute is paid._ He feels older already.

He’s distracted from his own lightshow by the scrape of Hades’ chair; he moves a little closer to Persephone, pulls her close to his chest. Those two have never been particularly showy about their relationship, but now at the end of the world, they cling to one another, arms held tight. And Hermes understands, maybe, a bit of the draw, when he looks at Hades’ rock-hard face, cracked with so much painful love written in every line on it.

“I love you,” Persephone murmurs. “You remember that, you big dummy.” Hermes scoffs – what can Hades do but scold him? They have at most seconds left to live, this time around. “You remember that for the next time around. And if you doubt it, you open that note.”

“Love you too,” he says. “Remember that.” His hand shakes and he pulls a flower from nothing, tucks it in her hair. “You _remember_ that.” 

At the end of the world, the two pairs of lovers cling to one another. Hermes shudders as he feels the world above start to turn backwards – this has never been a pleasant feeling.

“Orpheus, what’s going on?” Eurydice is scared; none of the gods offer a balm to her, for there is no time to explain. “Orpheus, I don’t understand. What’s–”

He doesn’t understand either, Hermes knows. Point of fact, Orpheus is struggling to stay where he is – being on the upper side, he’s affected first by the rewind, as everything moves slower under-side than top-side, but– but though he struggles, he holds out his hand, and there’s a bright red carnation there.

“It’s okay.” He hands it to her, though he has to fight to get his hand back through the hole to get it to her. “It’s okay. We’re gonna- “He manages to hand it to her, and then he’s gone, and Eurydice cries out, and Hermes closes his eyes as things go too bright, as Hades, Persephone, and even he himself, the storyteller, shift backwards in time.

Hard to say whether or not it’ll work out well, but Hermes hopes. On every bit of hope left to cling to, above and below, he hopes.

* * *

When the light fades, he’s in front of the door to his bar, and the world is quiet and peaceful. That won’t last too long, he knows. He takes a moment, takes a deep breath, and enters the bar.

“Aight,” he says, entering the door; his regulars raise a glass to him. “Aight!” He says and rolls up his sleeves – Orpheus comes in the door, glasses on a tray in his hands and not a single worry in those young eyes.

“Aaaaiight,” he says, quiet, to himself, and flicks out his hands; a little less powr comes, but some, there's still something left. Hard to tell whether or not it’ll work out well, but he hopes.

He has to hope. He smiles and calls for Eurydice to come in from the cold, and prays this time, for once, they’ll all make it to the end.


End file.
